the crane the crane | Page 59 | Syracusefan.com

the crane the crane

The “Golden Spike “ prediction. Truss Circuit completed

I say March 17th
 
There is some activity today but nothing big looks imminent. I think they have one more spiral to put up to finish the northwest corner. I can see that the cables for the two spirals already in place for the last arrowhead that still needs to be finished do not have their cables attached to back stays and tightened yet, and were left hanging all weekend. That is unusual.

About the first thing they did today was send people up to the northwest corner. I assume they are inspecting and once their inspection is done, I am hoping permission will be given to complete the northwest corner.

Hope to see them attach the cables for the two newest spirals in the northwest corner and get that last spiral up to complete the last arrowhead today. It can't be good that the missing spiral is not out in the open in front of Walt, getting ready to go up.

But I do see what looks like one of the long bendy steel pieces being brought out of storage, presumably to be used to fix the newly installed box girder to it's back stay. Maybe they have learned it is best to get the bendy, thick one in place first and then connect the more traditional cables to the back stays?

Looking at mockups of the completed project, I see now that I was wrong about needing only 3 more box girders to connect the northeast and northwest corners. There are only 3 columns between these sections that do not have spiral supports in place but the ones closest to each other are only providing diagonal support to an adjacent girder. A vertical spiral will also need to be installed on these columns and then a box girder will be needed for each section, so 5 box girders will be needed to bridge the gap.

In terms of the total box girders required to complete the project, I believe there is a box girder for each column. Since there are 36 columns, there will be 36 box girders*. Right now, we have 8 of the 36 in place (even though one box girder is not fully in place), so we are about 22.22% of the way complete.

I think in a best case scenario, based on what I have seen to date, we might be able to do one box girder every other weekday. If we worked both big cranes simultaneously at this rate, it would take 14 work days to complete the crown truss. That would take us to February 7th.

This assumes no more lost days due to weather, no more delays due to steel not being available, and no major lost time due to inspection delays. Realistically, I think we are looking in completing it in mid to late February. I will say February 22nd. Hope I am being too pessimistic on this...

*=I believe each corner starts with a single spiral holding a single very short girder that acts as a starting point for the corner. For simplicity, I will not count these.
 
We know that there are at least 3 girders on site. I saw 2 moved to the South East corner with one of them relocated (via Walt's cousin) to the North side of the Dome. I suspect that the other one is there as well, I just didn't see it get moved. There's also a girder on the West side by Walt. I do not know how many may be at Hendricks Field.
 
I hope you are right about Late Feb. I figure even by mid-March they should still be in solid shape the get this done. They can't do too much prep inside the Dome until they vacate the sports teams from the Dome.

I figure it would be safe for the workers to do their thing inside starting March 1st or so if they stay on the opposite side of the crane working, which by March should be concentrated on one side.
 
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We have action!!
Walt's white crane assistant is in motion.
Updates to follow...
  1. Walt is raising a basket with people inside.
  2. They appear to be inspecting the end of the last girder to go up. Possibly prepping it for a support or the next girder. The basket is back, but at least one worker is still up at the girder. :)
  3. Walt is moving a basket with additional supplies/equipment to the workers at the North West girders.
  4. Resupply basket #2 & worker pick up... they're all back on the ground. Lunch break or done for the day? With the empty basket still attached to Walt's cable, it looks like a lunch break.
  5. They are back at it, some location by the South West girder.
  6. And they're back down. Walt's hook has been raised up, so they're probably done for the day.
    When they went on their lunch break they left the basket attached to Walt's cable(s) on the ground.
 
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Moontan and fellow crane watchers - an update: It's 2:03 P.M. and Walt has hold of the carrier/(basket) at the end of his cable. Two crew are up on the crown truss nearest the live cam and have been there for awhile. Lunch, if there was lunch, has long since passed. They have a scaffold and are working on the same area at the mid point of it as last week. I can see movement at times but have no idea what their purpose is in that area. P.S. The Portalet truck delivered two empties and took away two. More info when there is activity.
 
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Here is the week's weather. Looks GOOD for getting columns and girders up: M22/17 cloudy, Tu 26/18 mostly cloudy, Wed. 36/15 sunny, Th 38/16 inc. clouds, Fr 39/27 sunny, Sa 38/28 chance rain/snow, Su 37/23 Cloudy snow possible. :)
 
Activity - Walt is bringing the larger red carrier back to the yard empty let's see what the crew on the ground does with it. Nothing yet.
 
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And up goes a smaller carrier with supplies. As far as I can see at 2:44 P.M. there are 4- 5 crew I Walt's yard walking around doing?
 
The smaller carrier has just come back from the top - plenty of ground crew to re-supply
 
The four wheeled yellow and red vehicle with the ability to extend loads horizontally and vertically has just lifted the larger carrier out of the main yards drive and taken it across the street out of sight maybe to resupply in the Hendricks yard or not?
 
And just like that at 3:00 P.M. 7-8 or the crew hopped in a white van and left for today.
 
Monday 0 girders
Let’s see how many we put up for the week.
 
There is some activity today but nothing big looks imminent. I think they have one more spiral to put up to finish the northwest corner. I can see that the cables for the two spirals already in place for the last arrowhead that still needs to be finished do not have their cables attached to back stays and tightened yet, and were left hanging all weekend. That is unusual.

About the first thing they did today was send people up to the northwest corner. I assume they are inspecting and once their inspection is done, I am hoping permission will be given to complete the northwest corner.

Hope to see them attach the cables for the two newest spirals in the northwest corner and get that last spiral up to complete the last arrowhead today. It can't be good that the missing spiral is not out in the open in front of Walt, getting ready to go up.

But I do see what looks like one of the long bendy steel pieces being brought out of storage, presumably to be used to fix the newly installed box girder to it's back stay. Maybe they have learned it is best to get the bendy, thick one in place first and then connect the more traditional cables to the back stays?

Looking at mockups of the completed project, I see now that I was wrong about needing only 3 more box girders to connect the northeast and northwest corners. There are only 3 columns between these sections that do not have spiral supports in place but the ones closest to each other are only providing diagonal support to an adjacent girder. A vertical spiral will also need to be installed on these columns and then a box girder will be needed for each section, so 5 box girders will be needed to bridge the gap.

In terms of the total box girders required to complete the project, I believe there is a box girder for each column. Since there are 36 columns, there will be 36 box girders*. Right now, we have 8 of the 36 in place (even though one box girder is not fully in place), so we are about 22.22% of the way complete.

I think in a best case scenario, based on what I have seen to date, we might be able to do one box girder every other weekday. If we worked both big cranes simultaneously at this rate, it would take 14 work days to complete the crown truss. That would take us to February 7th.

This assumes no more lost days due to weather, no more delays due to steel not being available, and no major lost time due to inspection delays. Realistically, I think we are looking in completing it in mid to late February. I will say February 22nd. Hope I am being too pessimistic on this...

*=I believe each corner starts with a single spiral holding a single very short girder that acts as a starting point for the corner. For simplicity, I will not count these.
Did you take into account the time to relocate Walt, which will be necessary to complete truss? I thought I heard that would take a week or so.
 
Walt says “Good Night”...

DE438D52-331E-4D9C-984E-1E40B4880D7F.jpeg
 
If you were talking about the yellow vehicle that went in and out I'm pretty sure it was a gradall material handler(Think heavy duty rough terrain forklift). You will see these almost on any large scale construction, new building project. Very handy pieces of equipment for sure.

View attachment 175462
In the construction field we call this a Lull. Super handy.
 
Did you take into account the time to relocate Walt, which will be necessary to complete truss? I thought I heard that would take a week or so.
Walt is not moving. The other crane is moving. I didn’t take that into account but I think things on the east end are going to be inherently easier than on the west end, because of the elevation differences and the harder angles Walt, the bigger crane, is going to have to deal with on the western side.

I suspect it will end up close to a push. They will probably finish things somewhere near the middle of the south wall...
 
Walt is not moving. The other crane is moving. I didn’t take that into account but I think things on the east end are going to be inherently easier than on the west end, because of the elevation differences and the harder angles Walt, the bigger crane, is going to have to deal with on the western side.

I suspect it will end up close to a push. They will probably finish things somewhere near the middle of the south wall...
My mistake, I just knew a crane had to move.
 

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